Thalasstronaut
Active Member
Ok just how ferocious are these guys?
I have what I thought was a small (but growing steadily) lantern bass. He’s about 1.75 to 2 inches at this point if I had to guess.
My newest addition to the tank, maybe a month ago, was a Hector’s Goby. He wasn’t full grown but I’d put his total length at maybe 1.5 to 1.75 inches. He was almost as long as the basslet and skinnier, obviously.
The goby was initially pretty open but hid most of the time. Ended up in my overflow a couple of times. I hadn’t seen him in a few days but my tank is full of hidey holes and I assumed he was hunkered down.
This morning, I saw the HG out and about picking at the rocks and got excited. I’d had him for a bit but he was still that “new” fish, and I love the coloring and weird hovering way of swimming so I ran over to watch him graze.
Well he swam over near my lantern bass and he shot out at the goby. I’ve seen the lantern posture at some of my other fish but it’s always struck me as curiosity, he just swims in a very quick, start and stop manner. He’s never chased or nipped at any other fish as far as I’ve seen and I watch my tank quite a bit.
The goby darted into the rocks and the LB chased him, which got my attention. I peeked into the cave and they were tangled up. And the LB got the goby in his mouth. I grabbed my large algae scraper (the kind on a stick) and reached into the tank trying to startle the LB into spitting out the goby. No luck, he darted off but kept the goby in his jaws. He ended up at the other end of the tank with just the very end of the goby’s face sticking out of his mouth.
The whole ordeal took maybe 10 seconds from the time I saw the LB lunge at the goby to the time the goby was swallowed. LB swam around with a fat gut for a minute but now just looks slightly puffy.
It floored me. I knew the LB’s could get big and be assertive feeders, but I had always read that the main risk was crustaceans and really tiny fish. Granted the goby was skinny but he and the LB were almost the same length. And he didn’t even struggle getting that thing down, just pure cold killing machine.
I never would have added the goby if I thought there was even a slight chance of it getting munched. I kept an eel for a bit and the unease of adding livestock was something I was actively trying to avoid with my stocking this time. I’ve never been so surprised by a predation in any of my tanks, including the countless freshwater setups I had. I had ropefish that fought harder to suck down carnivore pellets than the this basslet did with a fighting goby.
I don’t know what to do now. I had planned on filling out my tank with smaller than average fish, to get a lot of “small” activity. A starry blenny is the big dog in the tank. I don’t want to rehome the basslet, he might be my favorite fish (that or my flame hawk) but man, what happens when he’s full grown? Is he going to chomp a clownfish like a gumball?
Included photo of the basslet with his big belly.
I have what I thought was a small (but growing steadily) lantern bass. He’s about 1.75 to 2 inches at this point if I had to guess.
My newest addition to the tank, maybe a month ago, was a Hector’s Goby. He wasn’t full grown but I’d put his total length at maybe 1.5 to 1.75 inches. He was almost as long as the basslet and skinnier, obviously.
The goby was initially pretty open but hid most of the time. Ended up in my overflow a couple of times. I hadn’t seen him in a few days but my tank is full of hidey holes and I assumed he was hunkered down.
This morning, I saw the HG out and about picking at the rocks and got excited. I’d had him for a bit but he was still that “new” fish, and I love the coloring and weird hovering way of swimming so I ran over to watch him graze.
Well he swam over near my lantern bass and he shot out at the goby. I’ve seen the lantern posture at some of my other fish but it’s always struck me as curiosity, he just swims in a very quick, start and stop manner. He’s never chased or nipped at any other fish as far as I’ve seen and I watch my tank quite a bit.
The goby darted into the rocks and the LB chased him, which got my attention. I peeked into the cave and they were tangled up. And the LB got the goby in his mouth. I grabbed my large algae scraper (the kind on a stick) and reached into the tank trying to startle the LB into spitting out the goby. No luck, he darted off but kept the goby in his jaws. He ended up at the other end of the tank with just the very end of the goby’s face sticking out of his mouth.
The whole ordeal took maybe 10 seconds from the time I saw the LB lunge at the goby to the time the goby was swallowed. LB swam around with a fat gut for a minute but now just looks slightly puffy.
It floored me. I knew the LB’s could get big and be assertive feeders, but I had always read that the main risk was crustaceans and really tiny fish. Granted the goby was skinny but he and the LB were almost the same length. And he didn’t even struggle getting that thing down, just pure cold killing machine.
I never would have added the goby if I thought there was even a slight chance of it getting munched. I kept an eel for a bit and the unease of adding livestock was something I was actively trying to avoid with my stocking this time. I’ve never been so surprised by a predation in any of my tanks, including the countless freshwater setups I had. I had ropefish that fought harder to suck down carnivore pellets than the this basslet did with a fighting goby.
I don’t know what to do now. I had planned on filling out my tank with smaller than average fish, to get a lot of “small” activity. A starry blenny is the big dog in the tank. I don’t want to rehome the basslet, he might be my favorite fish (that or my flame hawk) but man, what happens when he’s full grown? Is he going to chomp a clownfish like a gumball?
Included photo of the basslet with his big belly.
